


Borrowed Clothes

by MonsterTesk



Series: Apparel [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, some gory stuff but not a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterTesk/pseuds/MonsterTesk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's like walking around in borrowed clothes; nothing fits quite right and everything is just slightly wrong but he can't find the will to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowed Clothes

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-slash. Takes place like over a year before 'Clothes'.   
> No one asked for this but, hey, I can't wait around for the prompts to come pouring in cause y'all suck at prompting. 
> 
> May or may not be too far into the bottle to know better than to post shit like this. I don't even know if I like it but hey, whatthefuckever! It's Saturday night and I don't have to go to work tomorrow.
> 
>  
> 
> Wooooooooo.

**_It’s the flash of teeth_** when he smiles that cuts Chris’ heart. Stiles throws his head back, laughing, then jostles Allison where they sit on the couch. Chris doesn’t stop, doesn’t dare to ask what’s funny for fear that he’ll look at him, train those sharp eyes on Chris and decode the sickness inside of him with one look the same way Chris decoded the violently red hickey on Stiles’ neck and the bruises on his upper arms. Too big to be a woman’s mouth, too angry to be someone who likes themselves.

He may know, in an abstract way, that Stiles is with… with Derek but having the evidence rubbed in his face is a little too much. (But, _oh,_ wouldn’t he love to rub his face against that long neck.)

 _Shut up, shut up,_ he hisses at himself as he leaves the room.

 

They’re playing in the backyard. Or, well, Allison is trying to teach Stiles self-defense but if Chris squints and tilts his head the right way, it looks like little more than play wrestling, both of them coltish and unconsciously graceful as they grapple with each other. Chris is standing at the kitchen door, watching them while the noodles cook. Stiles’ shirt rides up when Allison pulls at his arm. They’re both laughing, having a great time. Completely unaware that a perverted old man is watching that young thing’s torso twist, hoping for a glimpse of something forbidden.

Stiles shouts and tackles Allison around the waist, twisting as they fall. He lands on top of her, legs in between hers and shoulders curved from where he supports his weight with the hands that have her pinned. Allison grins at him and Stiles returns it. They’re both panting. Chris resists the urge to feel jealous of Allison. If either of them should know what it’s like to be pinned by Stiles, it’s her. Chris isn’t Eve and Stiles isn’t the apple of his eye but he still holds a carnal knowledge that Chris absolutely should not learn.

Sometimes he’s sure that if Scott hadn’t found her first then Allison would have happily gone on to date Stiles. Sometimes he wishes she had. Other times, he’s glad that she didn’t simply because it would have made Chris’ attraction to him all the more disturbing.

 

 

 

Stiles should never be allowed to eat spaghetti, Chris thinks as Stiles bobs his head and sucks, slick wet noises floating across the table to slap Chris in the face. Stiles looks up like that, lips puckered around his rope of noodles and smirks, eyes locking on to Chris’ before his lips compress, squeezing together hard enough to truncate the noodles. Chris’ chest burns, fascination and strange things fluttering about in his head. He’s going to have to take some antacids soon or risk getting full on heartburn. And isn’t that just the perfect reminder?

Chris is so old that acid reflux is a symptom of desire meanwhile…

Meanwhile Stiles sits across the table from him young, virile, and innocent-ish.

But wouldn’t Chris love to watch that faux-innocent mask drop off; to see those eyes darken with hard thoughts while he pushes Chris’ legs apart and—

Some jangling tune Chris vaguely recognizes shatters his thoughts. Allison smiles sheepishly and pulls her phone out. Then frowns.

“Hey, what’s—”

Chris trains his eyes on Allison, determined not to look at Stiles’.

“OK. OK, calm down. I’ll be right over.”

Allison hangs up.

“Sorry,” she says. “Erica is wigged about something. I gotta go. Thanks for dinner, Dad. Stiles—“ She rubs the top of Stiles’ head and rushes out of the room.

Chris sits there and stares after her, now left alone with Stiles.

“Wonder what’s going on,” Stiles says, setting his fork down. Chris turns to look at him. Stiles is frowning, eyes fixed on where Allison had last been. He’s got a little pasta sauce in the corner of his lips.

“Hopefully nothing preternatural.”

Stiles nods then sighs.

“Knowing this bunch, I doubt it.”

He stands, picking up his plate and Allison’s. Chris follows suit, grabbing the serving bowl of noodles and his own plate.

“One day, I’m going to be able to sit down to dinner without it being interrupted.”

Stiles laughs.

“Hey, at least we got to the main course. Though, really that’s not so much of an accomplishment when one has _been_ the main course…”

Chris’ mind blanks, feet moving automatically as he tries not to imagine Stiles spread out on the dining room table, laying on a bed of garnish, covered from neck to toe in olive oil. He hadn’t been in the group that found the witch’s hideout and freed Stiles from being her supper, too busy beheading the damned witch, so the image wasn’t spoiled by the realities of Stiles having been on the menu, as it were. Chris shakes his head, coming back into himself in time to halt inches from running in to Stiles.

“I never did get to thank you for that,” Stiles says, voice serious for a moment. Chris looks away, wishing he could take back his thoughts about watching the innocence fall from Stiles’ eyes.

“I’m not the one you should thank. It was Allison and Erica who pulled you out of there.”

Stiles shakes his head, turns, sets down his plates on the counter, and turns back. He reaches out. Chris stills. Stiles’ hand hovers over his side, right where the stitches are from where the hag slashed him.

“No, but you’re the one who made one less bump in the night.”

Chris is afraid to move, to breath; afraid that if he does absolutely nothing at all then Stiles’ hand will lower, will press against his side, warm, and strong.

“Technically I made two more bumps that night.”

Stiles huffs out half a laugh, eyes crinkling and teeth glittering when he smiles at Chris. He opens his mouth to say something, eyes garnering shadows, turning dark in a way that makes the back of Chris’ neck tingle.

“Listen, Chris,” Stiles begins, pauses, chews on his lip. Chris’ stomach does flips at that. He’ll take the sound of his name coming out of Stiles’ mouth to his grave or at the very least to his bed.

James Brown wails that it’s a man’s world, cutting Stiles off. Stiles looks away from Chris, retracts his hand to dig into his pocket for his phone.

“What’s—” Stiles starts to say but stops. The voice on the other end is high-pitched, almost loud enough for Chris to make the words out.

“Slow down, slow down. Lydia, what’s—”

Chris shifts where he stands, adjusting his grip on the bowl of noodles. Stiles stares at some middle-distance near Chris while he listens.

“I’ll bring help. Just stay where you are. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

 

Stiles lies, everything is not fine that night. The twins die, Danny gets turned, and Stiles—Chris covers his face with his hand. Stiles is beautiful even like this to Chris; laying in a hospital bed, tubes, wires, and miles of bandages covering his leg, stitches across his chest, and something that always looks like a crappy clothespin marking each passing beat of Stiles’ heart while he sleeps.

They’ve both got bags under their eyes. Stiles’ are worse; little purple bruises that make it look like phantoms have been putting out their cigarettes in his sockets. Chris could do with a cigarette about now. He should leave, get some air. He shouldn’t even be here. Derek has made Chris’ unwelcome clear though Isaac has made Derek’s abundantly obvious in return.

Movement catches his eye. Chris looks up. Stiles is staring at him.

“Hey,” he says in a voice so hollow it makes Chris _hurt_.

“Hey, yourself.”

Stiles licks lips so chapped they might crack open and spill blood onto his chin and into his mouth. Chris automatically reaches for the cup of water resting on the little bed table. He hands it to Stiles, eyes fixed on Stiles’ lips. He doesn’t want to see any more of Stiles’ blood, not today and not for a long, long, hopefully eternal, time. He’s seen enough of it, enough of Stiles’ insides. Chris blinks to banish the image of Stiles on the gurney, sheet quickly turning red around Stiles’ torn jeans. It leaves only to be replaced by Stiles crawling on his belly, fingers digging into the dirt as he screams, leaving a trail of dirt turned mud by blood behind him.

“I had a dream,” Stiles says in between sips of water.

“Yeah?” Chris asks absently, trying hard not to memorize what Stiles’ leg had looked like torn open, skin flopping and muscles twitching around open air and little bits of leaves as they tried to make a now useless leg move.

“You were in it.”

Chris leans back in his chair, attempting to focus on the now, on the slight color in Stiles’ cheeks, on how absolutely resilient the man before him is and not on how horrifically fragile he seems.

“Was I?”

Stiles nods.

“You were standing in the kitchen, insisting that the Hulk would calm down if we switched him to decaf.”

Chris laughs, it surprises him. He hasn’t laughed since… since—that night.

“I have to agree with my dream-self on that one. That guy should stay away from stimulants.”

Stiles smiles. It’s tired and sad and looks maybe a little broken but Chris is glad for it.

“Except that caffeine withdrawal is a horrible thing and I didn’t think anyone needed to experience the Hulk like that.”

Chris slides sideways in his chair until the light over Stiles’ head is behind him a bit, making his buzzed hair glow. The stark lighting brings to the fore just how sharp Stiles’ cheeks have become, just how well the four-day’s stubble residing on his face looks.

“Which Hulk are we talking about here?”

Stiles shrugs, placing his cup back on the table.

“Ruffles? Norton? It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t end well with either of them.”

“How about Season One Hulk?”

Stiles smirks, head tilting to the side.

“I knew you stole my comics.”

Chris raises his eyebrows, hand going up to scratch his thumbnail along his forehead.

“Erica left them out.”

Stiles huffs, fingers fidgeting as best they can with a fold in his hospital gown.

“Allison has that same tell. It was probably Bixby Hulk.”

Chris frowns, ignoring the sly attack on his truthfulness. Erica had left them. It was just that she'd left them out in Allison’s room and not in a common area like the living room or somewhere Chris has the right to be.

“Bixby?”

Stiles’ eyes widen and he stills. Chris resists the urge to look over his shoulder.

“Please tell me you’ve seen the horrendous awesomeness that is Bixby Hulk.”

Chris shakes his head. The name rings a bell but he can’t place where the ringing is coming from. Stiles raises a shaky, bruised arm to point threateningly at Chris.

“Next time you come, bring my laptop. I will show you a whole new world of terrible wonder.”

Chris leans back, tries to swallow until his heart settles down to where it should be at the thought that not only did Stiles not mind his visits but trusts him enough to go through his things. Chris doesn’t deserve that trust. Not with what he thinks about doing to the finger Stiles has raised at him. Chris is just as bad as Kate was.

“Was that an Aladdin reference?”

Stiles smiles, head ducked a fraction more than it should be at that, a sly look on his face.

“If it was then that means you’re Jasmine.”

Chris straightens, heart pounding, tilts his nose into the air and tries to look haughty.

“At least I’m not Belle.”

Stiles coughs out a laugh, folding over as much as he can with all of his tubes, bandages, stitches and wires. “Dude,” he says in between laughing, this grinning frown on his face. “Low blow.”

Chris’ mind goes static, frozen in place by the idea that he can make Stiles laugh like that, make him smile so wide his eyes crinkle, cheeks turning flush with life. Chris did that; he made Stiles' day maybe just a little bit better. He made Stiles smile just like that, with the hospital lights shining over his head and that stupid plastic clothespin on his finger. His chest hurts and all he can think is, “ _Unattainable beauty.”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to pee like a fucking radio show contestant. (If you get that reference then I may adore you.)


End file.
